By Daniel Darling

Isaiah 40 (read complete scripture below)

Isaiah 40 is a great passage of Scripture to keep in your back pocket, so you can yank it out whenever you’re reaching the end of yourself.

Early this week, I was there. I felt completely inadequate for the life God has called me to live. I think this is typical for us young people. The wise prophet Isaiah seemed to think so. He mentioned at the end of this chapter that “even young people get tired.”

With age comes wisdom. Wisdom that says, “I can’t do everything myself.” Wisdom that knows, deep down, that our own human strength isn’t really strength at all.

Isaiah 40 is filled with beautiful, artistic declarations of the greatness of God. He speaks of God’s power over creation. He speaks of God’s sovereignty over the affairs of men. He speaks of God’s perfect character.

For Christians today, reading headlines and absorbing bad news, Isaiah 40 is a welcome balm to the soul. The nations, Isaiah says, “are a drop in the bucket” (15). The people of the earth are like “grasshoppers” (22). He brings the princes of the earth “to nothing” and the judges “as vanity.”

Like the people of old, we like to make God in our image, but Isaiah in verse 25 repeats the words of the Lord, “To whom will you liken me or shall I be equal?”

What should our response be to the magnitude and majesty of God? Look up and “behold who has created these things.” Oh, that we Christians would do that, that we would forget the silliness of this earth and behold our God.

Because God isn’t just great and powerful. God is also personal. The last part of this verse brings us home again. Isaiah asks the powerful question:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.

The God who sits at the corners of the earth. The God who puts judges and politicians and princes and pastors and CEO’s in their place. The God who controls the weather patterns. This same God gives you and me strength when we are weak.

That’s why Isaiah 40 is a part of your Bible worth remembering, marking down, and memorizing.

Isaiah 40 (NIV)

1 Comfort, comfort my people,

says your God.

2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and proclaim to her

that her hard service has been completed,

that her sin has been paid for,

that she has received from the Lord’s hand

double for all her sins.

3 A voice of one calling:

“In the wilderness prepare

the way for the Lord;

make straight in the desert

a highway for our God.

4 Every valley shall be raised up,

every mountain and hill made low;

the rough ground shall become level,

the rugged places a plain.

5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,

and all people will see it together.

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

6 A voice says, “Cry out.”

And I said, “What shall I cry?”

“All people are like grass,

and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.

7 The grass withers and the flowers fall,

because the breath of the Lord blows on them.

Surely the people are grass.

8 The grass withers and the flowers fall,

but the word of our God endures forever.”

9 You who bring good news to Zion,

go up on a high mountain.

You who bring good news to Jerusalem,

lift up your voice with a shout,

lift it up, do not be afraid;

say to the towns of Judah,

“Here is your God!”

10 See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power,

and he rules with a mighty arm.

See, his reward is with him,

and his recompense accompanies him.

11 He tends his flock like a shepherd:

He gathers the lambs in his arms

and carries them close to his heart;

he gently leads those that have young.

12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,

or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?

Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,

or weighed the mountains on the scales

and the hills in a balance?

13 Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord,

or instruct the Lord as his counselor?

14 Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him,

and who taught him the right way?

Who was it that taught him knowledge,

or showed him the path of understanding?

15 Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;

they are regarded as dust on the scales;

he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.

16 Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires,

nor its animals enough for burnt offerings.

17 Before him all the nations are as nothing;

they are regarded by him as worthless

and less than nothing.

18 With whom, then, will you compare God?

To what image will you liken him?

19 As for an idol, a metalworker casts it,

and a goldsmith overlays it with gold

and fashions silver chains for it.

20 A person too poor to present such an offering

selects wood that will not rot;

they look for a skilled worker

to set up an idol that will not topple.

21 Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood since the earth was founded?

22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,

and its people are like grasshoppers.

He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,

and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

23 He brings princes to naught

and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.

24 No sooner are they planted,

no sooner are they sown,

no sooner do they take root in the ground,

than he blows on them and they wither,

and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.

25 “To whom will you compare me?

Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.

26 Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:

Who created all these?

He who brings out the starry host one by one

and calls forth each of them by name.

Because of his great power and mighty strength,

not one of them is missing.

27 Why do you complain, Jacob?

Why do you say, Israel,

“My way is hidden from the Lord;

my cause is disregarded by my God”?

28 Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and his understanding no one can fathom.

29 He gives strength to the weary

and increases the power of the weak.

30 Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

31 but those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.